Black Badger

Chapter 355: Protocol (2)

What the hell?

I blinked stupidly.

What is this...

Where am I?

My vision sharpened.

Mouth hanging open, I stared at the scene in front of me. I couldn’t even think to move. Everything laid out before me was too unfamiliar.

Pale sky-blue bathroom tiles.

A toilet. A sink. Random items cluttering the sink counter. At a glance, they were all men’s toiletries. Men’s lotion. Shaving foam. A razor.

It smelled like water.

I understood why a second later. I lifted myself slightly to look at the plant sitting above the mirror, and heard a splashing sound—splap.

The bathtub is full?

I looked down at the lukewarm water filled up to my chest.

Why is it filled?

Half-awake, I slapped at the lukewarm water.

It felt like ordinary water. Like I’d run a bath and fallen asleep mid-prep.

The problem was, I had no idea where I was.

And—strangely—I was wearing clothes.

More precisely, only boxer briefs.

No shirt. No pants...

What the hell?!

Panicking, I whipped my head around.

No, but I only drank with Ju and Ro.

And that bar didn’t even have other people. It felt like Ju had deliberately picked a place with no customers. The bar that was open from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m.—once it got late, we’d been the only patrons left, and I clearly remembered the exhausted-looking employee while we kept ordering more drinks.

But I definitely didn’t drink maesilju.

So how did I black out?

Even when my condition wasn’t perfect, I’d never once gotten dead drunk off anything that wasn’t maesilju.

And where is this?

Why a bathtub, not a bed?

Rattle.

In the middle of my internal screaming, the bathroom door opened.

Frozen stiff, I watched whoever came in.

Ro—whistling.

Hair sticking up from sleep.

He looked exactly like someone who’d woken up a minute ago. Still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, the senior strolled into the bathroom and stopped in front of the toilet.

Still humming that cheerful tune, he undid his belt buckle.

Ziiip. The sound of a zipper going down.

Trrr...

I stared, mouth open, blankly watching the scene.

Giacomo Ro...

Peeing...

A senior as high as the sky...

The act continued, naturally, for a while.

Finally, the sound of the stream stopped.

Ro kept whistling as he pulled his pants up. He buttoned them, then flushed.

And when he turned his head, our eyes met.

“AAAAAAAHHHHH!”

“AAAAAAAHHHHH!”

We screamed at the same time.

“AAAAAAAHHHH!”

“AH! AH!!”

“AAAAAAAHHHH! Fuck!”

Water splashed into the air.

With the bathroom on the verge of exploding from our horror, we snapped back to our senses almost simultaneously.

“What are you doing?!”

“Senior!”

Ro and I shouted.

I gaped at him as he pointed at me.

“Where the hell is this?!”

“Why are you here?!”

Senior, how can you ask me that.

Don’t tell me your film got ripped clean too. If that’s the case, we’re even more screwed.

Just as I was about to sink into despair, Ro—eyes wide, finger still pointed at me—froze.

He blinked several times.

Then said,

“Ah. I dragged you here.”

I rose in the bathtub.

SPLAAASH!

Lukewarm water poured out of the tub with a loud crash.

It splattered against the bathroom tiles and ran into the drain.

Facing the rush of cold air, I stood upright in the tub and looked at Ro.

A brief silence passed.

“But why are you doing that in there?” Ro asked.

“Where are all your clothes?”

I wiped my wet face with my hand.

It took a while to grab onto the scraps of reason that had washed away with the lukewarm water.

But I had to get it together...

After forcing myself to steady my mind, I spoke.

“Could you... explain what happened...?”

Giacomo Ro granted my request.

***

So this is how it went.

When Ro lifted his head, apparently I was face-down asleep on the table.

‘What the hell. Are you dead?’

He raked a hand through his hair as he said it.

‘This guy can’t hold his liquor.’

‘Should we call it a night soon?’

Ju smiled faintly and paid.

No hesitation in the way he moved. The Personnel Director confidently paid by card, put his wallet away, then fished something out of his pocket.

Two bottles of hangover cure.

Ju smiled brightly and held them out to Ro.

‘Here.’

‘I don’t need crap like that.’

Giacomo Ro apparently doesn’t take hangover cures—those are for the weak.

‘You drink it.’

‘As expected~. So cool~.’

Ju gave Ro two enthusiastic thumbs-up for refusing the hangover cure.

‘Then I’ll give it to our youngest.’

The Personnel Director shoved both bottles into the pocket of my clothes while I was slumped over asleep.

Then he started making a call to someone.

After the call ended, the employee told them it was time to leave, so the two of them went outside.

Ro carried me out on his back.

He said it was around dawn when they left. And the moment they stepped outside, someone came to pick Ju up.

A man who approached with a crooked grin.

“But the second that guy showed up, the Personnel Director’s legs went out.”

Ro clicked his tongue.

“That bastard really can’t ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) hold his liquor.”

No...

It’s the opposite.

It’s the opposite, damn it.

I covered my face and groaned.

Truthfully, I’d had my face buried in both hands the entire time I listened to what happened last night.

A faint hangover, self-loathing, embarrassment, and reluctant awe toward the Personnel Director all swirled together into one mess.

I’m never drinking with the Personnel Director again.

No—and seriously. It hasn’t even been that long since Ami turned him down. And he already has someone to call?

And then he pretends to be drunk in front of that person?

Pretends to be drunk and gets supported all the way home?

What kind of person even is he...

“Anyway, why are you only wearing boxer briefs?” Ro asked.

“...?”

I lifted my head.

Frowning, I looked at Ro staring down at me and asked,

“Didn’t you take them off?”

“Why the hell would I strip a guy?”

“...I thought you were going to wash me because I threw up...”

“You didn’t throw up.”

Huh?

“Yesterday I just tossed you into the living room.”

Something surfaced.

A memory that popped up out of nowhere—something from quite a while ago. If this hadn’t happened now, I probably would’ve left it untouched forever, buried under other memories until I forgot it completely.

Something I’d heard at a pasta place.

‘What, are you going to end up being found in our bathtub someday?’

That was what Ro had said.

And I remembered the context too.

Back then, I’d been John Mühlen’s prime target of interest.

A time when I couldn’t clearly remember what I even was. After I’d fallen out of the portal, the scientist had asked me for my number.

John Mühlen...

I kicked out of the bathtub and bolted.

BANG!

An unfamiliar place spread out before my eyes.

“Crazy.”

Mouth hanging open, I stared at Giacomo Ro and John Mühlen’s sharehouse. I’d only ever heard about it. I’d half-believed it didn’t really exist. A place I never imagined I’d visit—now right in front of me.

It was a sea of green.

If it weren’t for the half-eaten chicken pieces, the half-finished Coca-Cola, the pants peeled off and lying inside out like a shed skin, and the T-shirts tossed around the same way, I never would’ve believed Ro lived here.

There were plants everywhere.

On the ceiling. On the walls. The windowsills and shelves were nothing but plants.

Some of them didn’t even look like they could possibly be plants that grew on Earth.

All of it mixed together, breathing in harmony. Soaking up sunlight pouring in through an open window.

If he’s always shut inside a lab, how does he manage all this?

Judging by the “Outsourced Cleaning Monthly Schedule” posted on the wall, it seemed like they hired people to clean the house.

But does a cleaning service also handle plant care?

Or is there a separate plant caretaker who comes by?

And behind that vine plant that looked frighteningly thick and sturdy—what the hell is that suspicious silver door?

It looked like a door I’d seen often in the science division. On it were red and yellow signs that read “Restricted Area,” “Danger,” and “Biohazard.”

The kind of signs you only saw in zones Yun warned you about, even in the science building.

Overwhelmed by the sight, I couldn’t move for a moment.

Then the suspicious silver door slid open.

Pssshk.

A control door opening with the sound of air releasing.

When it opened, John Mühlen appeared.

A scientist in a lab coat, latex gloves on both hands.

And his face was covered by something like a gas mask.

If it weren’t for his height and physical build, I might not have recognized him immediately.

“Ah...”

We stood there and stared at each other.

Me, in front of the bathroom.

Mühlen, in front of the restricted zone.

Latex gloves covering both hands.

A gas mask, stepping out of a biohazard area...

“I’ll be going!”

I sprinted for the front door without looking back.

“Goodbye!”

“Hey, where are you going?!” Ro shouted.

“Aren’t you taking your phone?!”

I snatched my phone off the floor.

But no matter how I spun around, I couldn’t find the clothes I’d been wearing. I didn’t think my eyesight had gotten worse just because my stamina had. Still, no clothes. Even as I desperately rummaged through everything with my phone clenched tight, my clothes never appeared.

“Senior, where are my clothes?!”

“Huh? How would I know?”

“Hildebert Taleb.”

“AAH!”

As I was digging through Ro’s pile of clothes, John Mühlen called my name in a low voice.

I shrieked from sheer surprise.

What the hell?

Why does he remember my name?

And that accurately?

“The clothes are inside.”

The ash-haired scientist even understood me perfectly and pointed deeper into the controlled zone.

“In there.”

The long finger covered in latex pointed straight at the danger area.

And I saw smoke I couldn’t identify leaking out from inside.

The gas was heavier than air, settling down toward the sharehouse floor.

I bolted out the front door without looking back.

I grabbed whatever looked like outerwear and fled outside. Once I spilled out into the chilly corridor, I crouched beside the door and sent an SOS. Wrapping the outerwear around myself like a single remaining blanket, I called my handler.

[What is it.]

Thankfully, Yun picked up quickly.

That same sullen voice as always.

I poured everything out.

Yun listened in silence.

Then he burst into laughter.

After collecting his clear laughter, the man told me he’d come pick me up now.

And he actually did—my handler drove over with Ami, and the two of them happily observed my pathetic state.

“Live long enough and you really see it all.”

“I’m thinking the exact opposite.”

From now on, even if a senior invited me to drink, I’d refuse with whatever excuse I could.

I climbed into Yun’s car in misery.

And I rode home, answering the siblings’ cheerful barrage of questions in a gloomy tone—vowing I would never overestimate my condition again, and never underestimate the Personnel Director’s alcohol tolerance again.

And I will never set foot anywhere near that sharehouse again...

That was how physical evaluation week, and the brief scandal-rumor, completely passed.

***

Time flew.

After accepting the limits of my current physical condition, I didn’t go into headquarters. Like people advised, I was basically shut away in the cabin. I rested at ease, did light stretching, and bathed Milk.

I also caught up on overdue contact. I showed up at Lee Seunghyun’s house out of nowhere and listened to my grumbling disciple talk about counseling. There was also a day I met San—since her test was over—and we went to an arcade.

If I keep living like this, I’ll get better.

If I don’t get impatient, and just do what I can right now.

With that mindset, I was lightly swinging a wooden practice sword behind the cabin one morning when I got an urgent call from Aide Gilbert.

[Someone came out of a portal.]

A voice stiff with tension.

[They’re speaking an unknown language, not the common tongue.]

An emergency assembly order was issued.